1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a photonic crystal that has a structure in which two or more media having different refractive indexes are arranged periodically. In particular, the present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a photonic crystal to which a photographic technology using silver halide is applied.
2. Description of the Related Art
Photonic crystals have their respective artificial multi-dimensional (e.g., two- or three-dimensional) periodic structures that are similar to those of solid crystals, and more particularly, each of the crystals has two or more media having different refractive indexes and being arranged in a periodic manner.
Conventionally, for manufacturing such a photonic crystal that has two or more media having different refractive indexes and being arranged periodically, there are various methods known in the art, such as dry etching, wet etching, fusion and lamination, sputtering, manipulation, self-organization, and lithographic application.
However, each of those conventional methods includes complicated steps and takes a comparatively long time for executing the steps. In particular, no person skilled in the art has known a simple method of manufacturing a two- or three-dimensional photonic crystal. Furthermore, each of those various methods depends on a technology used in the production of a semiconductor. Therefore, there is a problem in that a photonic crystal having a large surface area is difficult to manufacture.
Some of the above conventional methods may be restricted in size or accuracy of a pattern to be created, in order to avoid deterioration in the shape of such a pattern due to an undesired spread of light or a processing solution when an etching method is applied, for example.
In the following description, basic properties and exemplified operations of conventional photonic crystals and, also conventional methods of manufacturing the photonic crystals are omitted because they are described concretely in various prior art documents (e.g., see JP 2001-272566 A).